The St. Valentine's Day Massacre THE ST. VALENTINE'S DAY MASSACRE February 14th,1929. (M.Gomes collection) Seven men are killed in a garage on the North side of Chicago. Ordered by Al Capone, who is conveniently away in Miami at the time. Planned by McGurn and members of the Circus gang, imported hired killers are sent in the Moran warehouse to kill George "Bugs"Moran. Moran is a rival and thorn in Capone's side. Moran and his gang have posession of the lucreative Northside booze business and other rackets. The crews awaiting at the Circus Cafe are called in from this rooming house tipster to begin their fake raid.Once they arrive there is no turning back. Moran is nowhere to be found.The hired killers sent in to kill Moran mess up the hit by thinking that Moran is in the garage. One of the lookouts across the street had mistakingly taken one of the men entering the garage as Moran. Being late, Moran wasn't there and he had spotted the fake police cars on his way to the garage and mistook it for a raid. He doubled back and disappeared with his henchman.

Inside the garage, the killers lined up the Moran men consisting of 5 Moran gangsters, one mechanic and an optometrist who gets a kick out of hanging around gangsters. A dog tied to a truck howls madly. The killers level their weapons consisting of two thompsons, one with a 20 round clip, and one with a 50 round drum. The killers know that the drum has a tendancy to jam on occaision, so just in case they make sure the 20 round clip is used to kill flawlessly. A shotgun is also part of the arsenal. (M.Gomes collection) 70 spent shells hit the floor and two shotgun casings follow. All seven men are shot to pieces.The killers crazily have killed everyone inside.They leave the building pretending to be arrested by putting the guns in the back of their fellow gang members. They leave the scene.Two women, Jeanette Landesman and Mrs. Alphonse Morin, hear the machine gun clatter. One of them sends a roomer to go and investigate. He goes in and comes right out face completely white.

He tells them to call the police.The police arrive and find six dead men and one near death crawling to the door. Frank Gusenberg miraculously survives the massacre and lives for 3 hours with 14 slugs in his body. He refuses to mention anything about the massacre even though he knows he will die. Originally believed as only one car of killers at the scene, it is now noted that two fake police cars seemed to be part of the massacre. One in the alley, who's occupants leave their car and enter the garage at 2122 North Clark as a truck enters the two panel doors at the rear of the Moran warehouse. The Occupants keep the Moran men lined up and walk to the front of the office to let in the other car load of killers dressed as cops and civilians.Two cars are indeed later found burnt and cut up in an effort to destroy them. Both have police gongs and one is found to contain a notebook belonging to Al Weinshank killed in the garage.

One was a 1926 Peerless found in Maywood and the other a 1927 Cadillac touring car that was found in a fire at 1723 North Wood street.The fire was caused by a gang member trying to cut up the vehicle with an acetelyne torch. He did not realize that the car contained a canister that had a reserve of gasoline in the engine. Detectives search hospitals for anyone that may have burned himself in the hours that followed. First carload of killers arrive at the back of 2122 North Clark and obtain access to the garage. Once inside they line up the Moran gang and relieve them of their weapons.One of the fake cops then goes to the front and lets in the other set of non uniformed killers to unleash their hail of .45 bullets into the Northside boys. (Photo courtesy of author Mr. Bill Helmer) Front of 2122 North Clark Street. (Photo Mr. Jeff Maycroft) Front window at 2122 North Clark had the following sign; S-M-C-Cartage - Co On the door the windows have the following; SMC Cartage co Diagram showing how massacre might have happened.

(M.Gomes collection) 10:30 am at 2122North Clark street The Cadillac touring car is found not far from the Circus gang Cafe owned and run by St. Louis gangster Claude Maddox (John Moore aka Screwy) and Tony "Tough Tony" Capezio. This is a Capone satellite gang that has produced the likes of Jack McGurn. The next door address of the Circus cafe is given as residence to the owner of the garage for rental. In total about 14 men are used in the Massacre killing crew. Most ,will in turn, be themselves killed. Witnesses such as the two women are threatened to death, the Coroner is also threatened.Lots of compelling evidence ,but no one is ever brought to trial for these seven murders called the St. Valentine's Day Massacre. "All done, now let's get the hell outta here!" Crowds gather in front as police arrives. (Photo: Jeff Maycroft) (M. Gomes collection) Sgt. Thomas J. Loftus Loftus knew the Gusenbergs real well. Detective Clarence J. Sweeney erroneously puts himself in the massacre story, claiming he was at Frank Gusenberg's bedside.

As the years go by, Sweeney keeps the myth going and adds to the story, involving himself more and more. What really happened was Loftus arrived first at the scene and questioned Frank Gusenberg who was still alive in the garage. Loftus asked "Do you know me Frank?" Frank replied "Yes, you are Tom Loftus." Loftus then asks 'Who did it or what happened?" Frank replies "I won't talk." The officer then replies "You are in bad shape." Frank says "For God's sake get me to a hospital." Loftus tells Frank "Pete is here too." He said "Yes." Loftus asks Frank if they were lined up against the wall, to this Frank answers again 'I won't talk.' Once transferred to Alexian Brothers Hospital, Loftus asks Gusenberg another time and he refuses to talk. Before Gusenberg dies, the Sgt. asked Frank if three of the men wore police uniforms. To this Frank answers "Yes"' and then dies.

The erroneous statements later weaved into the story were that Gusenberg said 'I ain't no copper' and ' Nobody shot me' Sweeney claimed to be at Frank's bedside, yet Loftus detailed Officer James Mikes to be near Gusenberg at all times with no mention of Sweeney ever being there. Calvin Goddard's evidence from the crime scene. Here are the complete amount of spent .45 caliber shells that were picked up. 14 envelopes with 5 shelss each total 70. Goddard had figured out through forensics that 20 bullets came out of one Thompson and 50 came out of the other. One drum and one stick mag. Many had exaggerated the massacre with hundreds and thousands of bullets. In reality only seventy .45 acp rounds were fired along with two shotgun blasts. (Neal Trickel collection) Close up of spent shell picked up at the scene. (Neal Trickel collection) One of the photographers gets his head in the macabre scene (Photo taken by Mr.

Anthony Berardi of The Chicago American) Another view, notice one of the Gusenberg's handgun at extreme right front corner of photo (John Binder Collection) Close up of Frank Gusenberg's .38 (Photo courtesy of author Mr. Bill Helmer) Photo courtesy of Mr. Bill Helmer Bodies being removed under the watchful eye of Dr. Herman Bundesen (Glasses). (Photo courtesy of Mr. Bill Helmer) Photo of Clark street taken 13 days after massacre. Arrow on the left shows garage where massacre took place. Arrow to the right shows look out building. (Mario Gomes collection) A Chicago doctor for many years, Herman Bundesen led the investigation into the St. Valentine's day massacre crime. (Mario Gomes collection) Herman Bundesen and the Coroner's Jury watch as the massacre is re-enacted at 2122 North Clark street. Executive Vice President of Palmolive Peet Burt A. Massee. Coroner's jury foreman. He helped finance the investigation. (Mario Gomes collection) Final edition for February 14,1929. (Mario Gomes collection). Chicago Herald Examiner February 15,1929.

Photo page of Chicago Herald Examiner February 15,1929. (Mario Gomes Collection) Several versions were printed during the day and evening . Chicago Daily News Feb.14th,1929. Coroners inquest by Herman Bundesen along with ballistics expert Calvin Goddard seated at left. (M.Gomes collection) Swearing in of coroner's Jury with massacre bodies laid out on makeshift tables. (Mario Gomes collection) Bullets removed from bodies. (The John Binder collection) Another view of same picture with Peter Gusenberg (Massacre Victim) and unidentified fellow next to him not part of massacre. (M.Gomes) Ballistics expert Calvin Goddard with coroner Herman Bundesen. Mr.Goddard identifies the bullets removed from the massacre bodies as those coming from Thompsons found in Fred"Killer"Burke's posession. (Mario Gomes collection) Spent shells recently fired from Massacre Thompson 2347. (Special thanks to Mr. Chuck Schauer for these) (Mario Gomes collection) Peter Von Frantzius (right) underworld gun supplier through sporting goods store that he owns is being questioned by Coroner Herman Bundesen.

(Mario Gomes collection) Machine gun seller Frank V. Thompson being interviewed at the massacre inquest. Thompson had sold quite a few Thompsons to various gangsters. Thompson will later take his own life. (Mario Gomes collection) Vincent Daniels (Danielski) in the hot seat. He too sold Thompsons to various gangsters such as Jack McGurn and Frank Gusenburg. (Mario Gomes collection) Thought partly to blame for the massacre was the northside gangsters constant stealing of Capone's booze by the name of Old Log Cabin made in Montreal,Canada. Moran's men would sometimes hijack it enroute from Detroit to Chicago. (Mario Gomes collection) St. Valentine’s Day Massacre - Facts & Summary - HISTORY.com St. Valentine’s Day Massacre St. Valentine’s Day Massacre Author St. Valentine’s Day Massacre URL A+E Networks Introduction Gang warfare ruled the streets of Chicago during the late 1920s, as chief gangster Al Capone sought to consolidate control by eliminating his rivals in the illegal trades of bootlegging, gambling and prostitution.

This rash of gang violence reached its bloody climax in a garage on the city’s North Side on February 14, 1929, when seven men associated with the Irish gangster George “Bugs” Moran, one of Capone’s longtime enemies, were shot to death by several men dressed as policemen. The St. Valentine’s Day Massacre, as it was known, was never officially linked to Capone, but he was generally considered to have been responsible for the murders. Google The Rise of Scarface From 1924 to 1930, the city of Chicago gained a widespread reputation for lawlessness and violence. Not coincidentally, this phenomenon coincided with the reign of chief crime lord Al “Scarface” Capone, who took over from his boss Johnny Torrio in 1925.

(Torrio, who was seriously wounded in an assassination attempt in 1924, had “retired” to Brooklyn.) Prohibition , ushered in by the passage of the 18th Amendment in 1920, had greatly increased the earnings of America’s gangsters through bootlegging (the illegal manufacture and sale of alcohol) and speakeasies (illicit drinking establishments), as well as gambling and prostitution. Capone’s income from these activities was estimated at some $60 million a year; his net worth in 1927 was around $100 million. Did You Know? George "Bugs" Moran was on his way to the garage in Chicago at the time of the St. Valentine's Day Massacre; he missed getting killed by minutes. A few days later, he told reporters "Only Capone kills like that." Reached at his Florida home for comment on the murders, Capone offered his own opinion: "The only man who kills like that is Bugs Moran." Over the years, Capone consolidated control over most of Chicago’s crime rackets by ruthlessly gunning down his rivals.

In 1924, authorities counted some 16 gang-related murders; this brand of continued until 1929, reaching a high of 64 murders in one year during that time. Federal authorities, including the Federal Bureau of Investigation, had much less jurisdiction than they have today, and did not include Chicago’s gang-related activity. Massacre on St. Valentine’s Day Chicago’s gang war reached its bloody climax in the so-called St. Valentine’s Day Massacre of 1929. One of Capone’s longtime enemies, the Irish gangster George “Bugs” Moran, ran his bootlegging operations out of a garage on the North Side of Chicago. On February 14, seven members of Moran’s operation were gunned down while standing lined up, facing the wall of the garage. Some 70 rounds of ammunition were fired. When police officers from Chicago’s 36th District arrived, they found one gang member, Frank Gusenberg, barely alive. In the few minutes before he died, they pressed him to reveal what had happened, but Gusenberg wouldn’t talk.

Police could find only a few eyewitnesses, but eventually concluded that gunmen dressed as police officers had entered the garage and pretended to be arresting the men. Though Moran and others immediately blamed the massacre on Capone’s gang, the famous gangster himself claimed to have been at his home in Florida at the time. No one was ever brought to trial for the murders. The Downfall of Public Enemy No. 1 Though the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre marked the end of any significant gang opposition to Capone’s rule in Chicago, it can also be said to have marked the beginning of his downfall. With his highly effective organization, his impressive income and his willingness to ruthlessly eliminate his rivals, Capone had become the country’s most notorious gangster, and the newspapers dubbed him “Public Enemy No. 1.” Federal authorities began investigating Capone after he failed to appear before a federal grand jury after being subpoenaed in March 1929. When he finally appeared and testified, federal agents arrested him for contempt of court. Capone posted bond and was released, only to be arrested in Philadelphia that May on charges of carrying concealed weapons. Capone served nine months in prison and was released for good behavior.

In February 1931, a federal court found Capone guilty on the contempt charge and sentenced him to six months in Cook County Jail. Meanwhile, the U.S. Treasury Department had launched an investigation of Capone for income tax evasion. Through diligent forensic accounting, Special Agent Frank Wilson and other members of the Intelligence Unit of the Internal Revenue Service were able to put together a case, and in June 1931 Capone was indicted for evasion of federal income tax. Convicted that October after an internationally publicized trial, Capone was sentenced to 11 years in prison, first in Atlanta and later at Alcatraz . He was released in 1939 and died an invalid recluse at his Florida home in 1947. Tags St. Valentine's Day Massacre | World History Project St. Valentine's Day Massacre Capone's most notorious killing was the St. Valentine's Day Massacre. On February 14, 1929, four Capone men entered a garage at 2122 N. Clark Street. The building was the main liquor headquarters of bootlegger George "Bugs" Moran's North Side gang.

Because two of Capone's men were dressed as police, the seven men in the garage thought it was a police raid. As a result, they dropped their guns and put their hands against the wall. Using two shotguns and two machine guns, the Capone men fired more than 150 bullets into the victims. Six of the seven killed were members of Moran's gang; the seventh was an unlucky friend. Moran, probably the real target, was across the street when Capone's men arrived and stayed away when he saw the police uniforms. As usual, Capone had an alibi; he was in Florida during the massacre. Source: Chicago Historical Society Added by: corey The Saint Valentine's Day Massacre is the name given to the death of seven people as part of a Prohibition Era conflict between two powerful criminal gangs in Chicago, Illinois, in the summer of 1929: the South Side Italian gang led by Al Capone and the North Side Irish gang led by Bugs Moran. Former members of the Egan's Rats gang were also suspected to have played a large role in the St. Valentine's Day massacre, assisting Capone.

The Massacre On the morning of Thursday, February 14, 1929 St. Valentine's Day, six members of the "Bugs" Moran gang and Reinhardt H. Schwimmer were lined up against the rear inside wall of the garage of the SMC Cartage Company (2122 North Clark Street) in the Lincoln Park neighborhood of Chicago's North Side. They were then shot and killed, possibly by members of Capone's gang, possibly by "outside talent" (that is, gangsters from outside the city who would not be known to their victims), most likely by a combination of both. Two of the men were dressed as Chicago police officers, and the others were dressed in long trenchcoats, according to witnesses who saw the "police" leading the other men at gunpoint out of the garage (part of the plan). When one of the dying men, Frank Gusenberg, was asked who shot him, he replied, "I'm not gonna talk - nobody shot me" despite having 22 bullet wounds. Capone himself had arranged to be on vacation in Florida. The St.

Valentine's Massacre resulted from a plan devised by a member or members of the Capone gang to eliminate the Polish-Irish Bugs Moran, the boss of the North Side Gang, formerly headed up by Dion O'Banion who was murdered nearly five years earlier. Jack McGurn is the person most frequently cited by researchers as a suspected planner. The massacre was planned by the Capone mob for a number of reasons: in retaliation for an unsuccessful attempt by Frank and his brother Peter Gusenberg to murder Jack McGurn earlier in the year, the North Side Gang's complicity in the murder of Pasqualino "Patsy" Lolordo as well as Antonio "The Scourge" Lombardo, and Bugs Moran's muscling in on a Capone-run dog track in the Chicago suburbs. Also, the rivalry between Moran and Capone for control of the lucrative Chicago bootlegging business led Capone to plan the hits and the O'Banion's gang demise. The plan was to lure Moran and his men to the SMC Cartage warehouse on North Clark Street. It is assumed usually that the North Side Gang was lured to the garage with the promise of a cut-rate shipment of bootleg whiskey, supplied by Detroit's Purple Gang.

However, some recent studies dispute this. All seven victims (with the exception of John May) were dressed in their best clothes, hardly suitable for unloading a large shipment of whiskey crates and driving it away. The real reason for the North Siders gathering in the garage may never be known for certain. A four-man team would then enter the building, two disguised as police officers, and kill Moran and his men. Before Moran and his men arrived, Capone stationed lookouts in the apartments across the street from the warehouse. Wishing to keep the lookouts inconspicuous, Capone had hired two unrecognizable thugs to stand watch in rented rooms across the street from the garage. At around 10:30 a.m. on St. Valentine's Day, four men arrived at the warehouse in two cars: a Cadillac sedan and a Peerless, both outfitted to look like detective sedans. Two men were dressed in police uniforms and two in street clothes. The Moran gang had already arrived at the warehouse. However, Moran himself was not inside. One account states that Moran was supposedly approaching the warehouse, spotted the police car, and fled the scene. Another account was that Moran was simply late getting there.

The lookouts allegedly confused one of Moran's men (most likely Albert Weinshank, who was the same height, build and even physically resembled Moran) for Moran himself: he then signaled for the gunmen to enter the warehouse. The two phony police, carrying shotguns, exited the Peerless and entered the warehouse through the two rear doors. Inside they found members of Moran's gang, a sixth man named Reinhart Schwimmer, who was not actually a gangster but more of a gang "hanger-on", and a seventh man, John May, who was a mechanic fixing one of the cars, and technically not a member of the gang but an occasionally hired mechanic. The killers told the seven men to line up facing the back wall. There was apparently not any resistance, as the Moran men thought their captors were real police, and it was likely a "show" bust merely to garner good press for the police department. Then the two "police officers" let in two men through the front door facing Clark Street. This pair, riding in the Cadillac, were dressed in civilian clothes. Two of the killers started shooting with Thompson sub-machine guns, one containing a 20-round magazine and the other a 50-round drum.

All seven men were killed in a volley of seventy machine-gun bullets and two shotgun blasts according to the coroner's report. To show bystanders that everything was under control, the men in street clothes came out with their hands up, prodded by the two uniformed cops. The only survivor in the warehouse was John May's German shepherd, Highball. When the real police arrived, they first heard the dog howling. On entering the warehouse, they found the dog trapped under a beer truck and the floor covered with blood, shell casings, and corpses. Photographs of the scene were taken immediately after the shooting by Jun Fujita and published in the Chicago Daily News. The victims The seven men killed that morning were: 1. Peter Gusenberg, a front line enforcer for the Moran organization. 2. Frank Gusenberg, the brother of Peter Gusenberg and also an enforcer. Frank was miraculously still alive when police first arrived on the scene. He died three hours later, saying only, "Nobody shot me." when questioned by the police on the perpetrator 3. Albert Kachellek, alias "James Clark", Moran's second-in-command. 4. Adam Heyer, the bookkeeper and business manager of the Moran gang.

5. Reinhart Schwimmer, an optician who had abandoned his practice to gamble on horse racing (unsuccessfully) and associate with the Moran gang. He would, in contemporary parlance, be referred to as a "gang groupie". Though Schwimmer called himself an "optometrist" he was actually an optician (an eyeglass fitter) and he had no medical training. 6. Albert Weinshank, who managed several cleaning and dyeing operations for Moran. His physical and even clothing resemblance to Moran is what allegedly set the massacre in motion before Moran actually arrived. 7. John May, an occasional car mechanic for the Moran gang, though not a gang member himself. May had two earlier arrests for safeblowing (no convictions) but was attempting to work legally. However, his desperate need of cash, with a wife and seven children, caused him to accept jobs with the Moran gang as a mechanic. The investigation The slaughter exceeded anything yet seen in the United States at that time. At first, it was thought that police may have indeed been responsible for the killings, but 255 detectives were soon cleared. Chicago Police scrambled to figure out who had been responsible.

Since it was common knowledge that Moran was hijacking Capone's Detroit-based liquor shipments, police focused their attention on the Purple Gang. Mug shots of Purple members George Lewis, Eddie Fletcher, Phil Keywell and his kid brother Harry, were picked out by the landlady across the street as the phony roomers. Later, the women who identified them wavered, and, Fletcher, Lewis, and Harry Keywell were all questioned and cleared by Chicago Police. Nevertheless, the Keywell brothers (and by extension the Purple Gang) would remain ensnared in the massacre case for all time. A week after the massacre, a 1927 Cadillac sedan was found disassembled and partially burned in a garage on Wood Street. It was determined that the car was used by the massacre killers. The garage was located two blocks from the Circus Café, which was operated by Claude Maddox, a former St. Louis gangster and member of the Capone mob. Detectives checking leads in St. Louis discovered that former members of the Egan's Rats mob may have played a part. They soon announced they were seeking Fred "Killer" Burke and James Ray as the two uniformed police officers in the garage.

Burke and other members of the mob had been known to use police uniforms to fool their victims. Police also proposed that Joseph Lolordo may have been one of the machine gunners, mostly likely because his brother Pasqualino had recently been murdered by the North Side Gang. Police also announced they suspected Capone gunmen John Scalise and Albert Anselmi, as well as Jack McGurn himself, and Frank Rio, a Capone bodyguard. Police eventually charged McGurn and Scalise with the massacre. John Scalise was murdered before he went to trial and the charges against Jack McGurn were downgraded to a violation of the Mann Act, stemming from taking the main witness against him, girlfriend Louise Rolfe (who became known as the "Blonde Alibi"), across state lines to marry. The case stagnated until December 14, 1929, when Berrien County sheriffs raided the St. Joseph, Michigan bungalow of “Frederick Dane”. Dane had been the registered owner of a vehicle driven by Fred "Killer" Burke. Burke had been drinking and rear-ended another vehicle in front of the police station. Officer Charles Skelly ran outside to investigate.

When Burke attempted to drive away, Officer Skelly hopped on the running board and was shot off. He died of his wounds a short time later. When police raided Burke's bungalow, they found a bulletproof vest, bonds recently stolen from a Wisconsin bank, two Thompson submachine guns, pistols, and thousands of rounds of ammunition. Both machine guns were determined to have been used in the massacre. Unfortunately, no further concrete evidence would surface in the massacre case. Burke would be captured over a year later on a Missouri farm. As the case against him in the murder of Officer Skelly was strongest, he was tried in Michigan and subsequently sentenced to life imprisonment. Fred Burke died in prison in 1940. Aftermath Public outrage over The St. Valentine's Day Massacre marked the beginning of the end to Moran's power. Although Moran suffered a heavy blow, he still managed to keep control of his territory until the early 1930s, when control passed to the Chicago Outfit under Frank Nitti. The massacre also brought the belated attention of the federal government to bear on Capone and his criminal activities.

In 1931, Capone was convicted of income tax evasion and was imprisoned for 11 years. The massacre ultimately affected both Moran and Capone and left the war they had with each other a stalemate. The massacre did severely cripple the North Side gang, a blow from which they never fully recovered. But the primary target of the massacre, Moran, escaped, and the public and police pressure brought to bear on the Capone organization hampered their operation almost as badly. Though Jack McGurn would beat the massacre charges, he would be murdered himself on February 15, 1936. The two most widely accepted theories credit either Bugs Moran or the Chicago Outfit itself under Frank Nitti with the killing, as McGurn had become a public relations liability to the Outfit. The Bolton revelations On January 8, 1935, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agents surrounded a Chicago apartment building at 3920 North Pine Grove, looking for the remaining members of the Barker-Karpis Gang. A brief shootout erupted, resulting in the death of bank robber Russell Gibson. Also taken into custody were Doc Barker, Byron Bolton and two women.

When agents began interrogating the two men, they got nothing of value from Dock Barker, but Bolton (a hitherto obscure criminal) proved to be a “geyser of information” as one crime historian put it. A former Navy machine gunner and member of the old Egan’s Rats gang, Bolton had for years been the valet and sidekick of a slick Chicago hit man named Fred Goetz, who was also known as “Shotgun George” Ziegler. Byron had been party to many of the Barker Gang’s crimes, and even pinpointed the Florida hideout of Ma and Freddie Barker (who were killed in a shootout with the FBI a week later). Bolton kept on talking, and to the agents’ surprise, claimed to have taken part in the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre with his pal Goetz, Fred Burke, and several others. The FBI (having no jurisdiction in a state murder case) attempted to keep Bolton’s revelations confidential, until the Chicago American newspaper somehow got their hands on a second-hand version of the bank robber’s confession. The newspaper declared that the crime had been “solved”, despite being stonewalled by J.

Edgar Hoover and the Bureau, who did not want any part of the massacre case. Garbled versions of Bolton’s story went out in the national media. Pieced together, his tale went like this: Bolton claimed that the murder of Bugs Moran had been plotted in “October or November” 1928 at a Couderay, Wisconsin resort owned by Fred Goetz. Present at this meet were Goetz, Al Capone, Frank Nitti, Fred Burke, Gus Winkeler, Louis Campagna, Daniel Serritella, and William Pacelli. The men stayed two or three weeks, hunting and fishing when they weren’t planning the murder of their rival. Byron Bolton claimed he and Jimmy Moran (or Morand) were charged with watching the S.M.C. Cartage garage and phoning the signal to the killers at the Circus Café when Moran arrived at the meet. Police had indeed found a letter addressed to Bolton in the lookout nest (and possibly a vial of prescription medicine.) Bolton guessed that the actual killers had been Burke, Winkeler, Goetz, Bob Carey, Raymond Nugent, and Claude Maddox (four shooters and two getaway drivers).

Bolton gave an account of the massacre different from the one generally told by historians. He claimed that he saw only “plainclothes” men exit the Cadillac and go into the garage. This indicates that a second car was used by the killers. One witness, George Brichet, claimed to have seen at least two uniformed men exiting a car in the alley and entering the garage through its rear doors. A Peerless sedan had been found near a Maywood house owned by Claude Maddox in the days after the massacre, and in one of the pockets was an address book belonging to victim Albert Weinshank. Bolton’s mistake was when he mistook one of Moran’s men for the man himself, after which he telephoned the signal to the Circus Café. When the killers (who had expected to kill Moran and maybe two or three of his men) were unexpectedly confronted with seven men, they simply decided to kill them all and get out fast. Bolton claimed that Capone was furious with him for his mistake (and the resulting police pressure) and threatened to kill him, only to be dissuaded by Fred Goetz.

His claims were corroborated by Gus Winkeler’s widow Georgette, in both an official FBI statement and her memoirs, which were published in a four-part series in a true detective magazine during the winter of 1935-36. Mrs. Winkeler revealed that her husband and his pals had formed a special crew used by Capone for high-risk jobs. The mob boss was said to have trusted them implicitly and nicknamed them the “American Boys”. Byron Bolton’s statements were also backed up by William Drury, a maverick Chicago detective who had stayed on the massacre case long after everyone else had given up. Bank robber Alvin Karpis later claimed to have heard second-hand from Ray Nugent about the massacre and that the “American Boys” were paid a collective salary of $2,000 a week plus bonuses. Karpis also claimed that Capone himself told him while they were in Alcatraz together that Goetz had been the actual planner of the massacre. Despite Byron Bolton’s statements, no action was taken by the FBI. All the men he named, with the exceptions of Burke and Maddox, were all dead by 1935.

Bank robber Harvey Bailey would later complain in his 1973 autobiography that he and Fred Burke had been drinking beer in Calumet City at the time of the massacre, and the resulting heat forced them to abandon their bank robbing ventures. Claude Maddox was questioned fruitlessly by Chicago Police, and there the matter lay. Crime historians are still divided on whether or not the “American Boys” committed the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre. Other suspects Over the years, many mobsters, in and out of Chicago, would be named as part of the Valentine's Day hit team. Two prime suspects are Capone hit men John Scalise and Albert Anselmi; both men were lethal killers and are frequently mentioned as possibilities for two of the shooters. In the days after the massacre, Scalise was heard to brag, “I am the most powerful man in Chicago.” He had recently been elevated to the position of vice-president in the Unione Siciliana by its president, Joseph Guinta. Nevertheless, Scalise, Anselmi, and Guinta would be found dead on a lonely road near Hammond, Indiana on May 8, 1929.

Gangland lore has it that Al Capone had discovered that the pair was planning on betraying him. At the climax of a dinner party thrown in their honor, Capone produced a baseball bat and beat the trio to death. One recent addition to the roll of suspects is Tony Accardo, then a twenty-two year old gangster and driver for Jack McGurn. Many years later, Accardo would boast to his fellow gangsters that he had taken part (FBI agent William Roemer overheard him on a wiretap.) Most historians believe that while Accardo may have played a peripheral role in the murders, he was probably not one of the actual shooters. Another suspect was future mob boss Sam Giancana, then a twenty-year old member of the 42 Gang. Giancana was arrested in the days after the massacre on a charge of general investigation, and most familiar with the case don’t believe he played a major role. New York mob informant Dominick Montiglio would later claim in the book Murder Machine that his uncle Anthony 'Nino' Gaggi, intimated that his uncle Frank Scalise had been one of the killers in the massacre.

While not likely, this shows how the massacre continues to capitivate people to this day. Some people today speculate that perhaps Capone really was innocent after all. Maybe it was a bunch of crooked cops or an internal beef amongst the Moran Gang. One historian suspects a bunch of "hillbilly gangsters."[citation needed] The true identities of the shooters may never be known with certainty. The murder weapons The two Thompson submachine guns (serial numbers 2347 and 7580) found in Fred Dane’s (an alias for Fred Burke) Michigan bungalow were personally driven to the Chicago coroner’s office by the Berrien County DA. Ballistic expert Calvin Goddard tested the weapons and determined that both had been used in the massacre. One of them had also been used in the murder of Brooklyn mob boss Frankie Yale, which confirmed the NYPD’s long-held theory that Burke, and by extension Al Capone, had been responsible for Yale's death. Gun No. 2347 had been originally purchased on November 12, 1924 by Les Farmer, a deputy sheriff in Marion, Illinois, which happened to be the seat of Williamson County.

Marion and the surrounding area were then overrun by the warring bootleg factions of the Shelton brothers and Charlie Birger. Deputy Farmer was documented as having ties with the Egan’s Rats gang, based 100 miles away in St. Louis. By the beginning of 1927 at the very latest, the weapon had wound up in Fred Burke’s possession. It’s possible he used this same Tommygun in Detroit’s Milaflores Massacre on March 28, 1927. Gun No. 7580 had been sold by Chicago sporting goods owner Peter von Frantzius to a Victor Thompson (aka Frank V. Thompson) in the care of the Fox Hotel of Elgin, Illinois. Some time after the purchase the machine gun wound up with James "Bozo" Shupe, a small-time hood from Chicago’s West Side who had ties to various members of Capone’s Outfit. Both submachine guns are currently in the possession of the Allegan County Police. The crime scene and bricks from the murder wall The garage, which stood at 2122 N.

Clark Street, was demolished in 1967; the site is now a landscaped parking lot for a nursing home. There is still controversy over the actual bricks used to build the north inside wall of the building where the mobsters were lined up and shot. They were claimed to be responsible, according to stories, for bringing financial ruin, illness, bad luck and death to anyone who bought them. The bricks from the bullet-marked inside North wall were purchased and saved by Canadian businessman George Patey in 1967. His original intention was to use it in a restaurant that he represented, but the restaurant's owner didn't go for the idea. Patey ended up buying the bricks himself, outbidding three or four others. Patey had the wall painstakingly taken apart and had each of the 414 bricks numbered, then shipped them back to Canada. There are various different reports about what George Patey did with the bricks after he got them. In 1978, Time Magazine reported that Patey reassembled the wall and put it on display in a wax museum with gun-wielding gangsters shooting each other in front of it to the accompaniment of recorded bangs.

The wax museum later went bankrupt. Another source, an independent newspaper in the UK, reported in February 2000 that the wall toured shopping malls and exhibitions in the United States for a couple of decades. In 1968 Patey stopped exhibiting the bricks and put them into retirement. Patey opened a nightclub called the Banjo Palace in 1971. It had a Roaring Twenties theme. The famous bricks were installed inside the men's washroom with Plexiglas placed right in front of it to shield it, so that patrons could urinate and try to hit the targets painted on the Plexiglas. In a 2001 interview with an Argentinian journalist, Patey said, "I had the most popular club in the city. People came from high society and entertainment, Jimmy Stewart, Robert Mitchum." The bricks were placed in storage until 1997 when Patey tried to auction them off on a website called Jet Set On The Net. The deal fell through after a hard time with the auction company. In 1999, Patey tried to sell them brick by brick on his own website.

The last known substantial offer for the entire wall was made by a Las Vegas casino but Patey refused the $175,000 offer. Patey died on December 26, 2004, having never revealed how much he paid to buy the bricks at auction. History As we fast approach Valentine’s Day — universal holiday of overpriced roses — let’s take a moment to remember the Valentine’s Day Massacre of 1929. This was the most notorious gangland slaying in the United States. Al Capone assumed the final smidgen of Chicago crime boss power on February 14, 1929. Four men dressed up as policemen and strode onto gangster Bugs Moran’s property. They lined up seven men who were part of the Moran gang and killed them — with submachine guns, shotguns, and a revolver — in a shower of 90 bullets. Moran was not present but only because he decided to linger in bed a little later than usual that morning. Likewise, Capone was not present but vacationing on Palm Island, Florida instead. This was just one of many of Capone’s rock-solid alibis during his tenure as a crime boss.

The murders rocked the city of Chicago. One, the Tribune, shouted, “These murders went out of the comprehension of a civilized city. The butchering of seven men by open daylight raises this question for Chicago: Is it helpless?” Why did this massacre happen? Moran’s and Capone’s men were locked in a gang war that aimed to settle the North Chicago scene at the end of the bootlegging era. Both sides wanted to gain control of Chicago’s smuggling and trafficking trades. Ater several attempted murders on both sides of the gang war, Capone and his buddies found a peaceful lunch showered with over 1,000 bullets. When Capone ended up with a $50,000 bounty after this incident, he gave the final orders for Maran’s gang to meet their brutal end. Capone’s men entered the premises while Moran showed up late. After his men took too long, Moran believed all of his men has been arrested in a prohibition raid. What really happened? The four fake policemen were putting an end to the Moran gang. Among the deceased were Moran’s brightest assassins, Frank and Pete Gusenberg.

Frank was still alive when police showed up, but he maintained his code of silence by assuring the cops, “No one, nobody shot me.” This was the last standoff between the Capone and Moran families. Moran’s gang never recovered from the loss of its brightest killers. Moran was never charged with his role in the murders, but he was arrested in 1946 after resorting to robberies to make ends meet. He later died in Leavenworth Federal Prison of lung cancer. The massacre solidified the Capone family as the leader of organized crime in Chicago. Unfortunately for the crime boss, Chicago citizens had enough of gang warfare. Two years later, Capone was jailed, and the party was over. For Capone, it was fun while it lasted. St. Valentines Day Massacre St. Valentines Day Massacre Updated February 29, 2016. What Was the St. Valentine's Day Massacre? Around 10:30 a.m. on St. Valentine's Day, February 14, 1929, seven members of Bugs Moran's gang were gunned down in cold blood in a garage in Chicago.

The massacre, orchestrated by Al Capone , shocked the nation by its brutality. The St. Valentine's Day Massacre remains the most notorious gangster killing of the Prohibition era. The massacre not only made Al Capone a national celebrity, it also brought Capone the unwanted attention of the federal government. The Dead: Frank Gusenberg, Pete Gusenberg, John May, Albert Weinshank, James Clark, Adam Heyer, and Dr. Reinhart Schwimmer Rival Gangs: Capone vs. Moran During the Prohibition era, gangsters ruled many of the large cities, becoming rich from owning speakeasies, breweries, brothels, and gambling joints. These gangsters would carve up a city between rival gangs, bribe local officials, and become local celebrities. By the late 1920s, Chicago was split between two rival gangs: one led by Al Capone and the other by George "Bugs" Moran . continue reading below our video The St. Valentine's Day Massacre Capone and Moran vied for power, prestige, and money; plus, both tried for years to kill each other.

In early 1929, Al Capone was living in Miami with his family (to escape Chicago's brutal winter) when his associate Jack "Machine Gun" McGurn visited him. McGurn, who had recently survived an assassination attempt ordered by Moran, wanted to discuss the ongoing problem of Moran's gang. In an attempt to eliminate the Moran gang entirely, Capone agreed to fund an assassination attempt and McGurn was placed in charge of organizing it. The Plan McGurn planned carefully. He located the Moran gang's headquarters, which was in a large garage behind the offices of S.M.C. Cartage Company at 2122 North Clark Street. He selected gunmen from outside the Chicago area, to ensure that if there were any survivors, they would not be able to recognize the killers as part of Capone's gang. McGurn hired lookouts and set them up in an apartment near the garage. Also essential to the plan, McGurn acquired a stolen police car and two police uniforms. Setting Up Moran With the plan organized and the killers hired, it was time to set the trap. McGurn instructed a local booze hijacker to contact Moran on February 13.

The hijacker was to tell Moran that he had obtained a shipment of Old Log Cabin whiskey (i.e. very good liquor) that he was willing to sell at the very reasonable price of $57 per case. Moran quickly agreed and told the hijacker to meet him at the garage at 10:30 the following morning. The Ruse Worked On the morning of February 14, 1929, the lookouts (Harry and Phil Keywell) were watching carefully as the Moran gang assembled at the garage. Around 10:30 a.m., the lookouts recognized a man heading to the garage as Bugs Moran. The lookouts told the gunmen, who then climbed into the stolen police car. When the stolen police car reached the garage, the four gunmen ( Fred "Killer" Burke , John Scalise, Albert Anselmi, and Joseph Lolordo) jumped out. (Some reports say there were five gunmen.) Two of the gunmen were dressed in police uniforms. When the gunmen rushed into the garage, the seven men inside saw the uniforms and thought it was a routine police raid. Continuing to believe the gunmen to be police officers, all seven men peacefully did as they were told.

They lined up, faced the wall, and allowed the gunmen to remove their weapons. Opened Fire With Machine Guns The gunmen then opened fire, using two Tommy guns , a sawed-off shotgun, and a .45. The killing was fast and bloody. Each of the seven victims received at least 15 bullets, mostly in the head and torso. The gunmen then left the garage. As they exited, neighbors who had heard the rat-tat-tat of the submachine gun, looked out their windows and saw two (or three, depending on reports) policemen walking behind two men dressed in civilian clothes with their hands up. The neighbors assumed that the police had staged a raid and were arresting two men. After the massacre was discovered, many continued to believe for several weeks that the police were responsible. Moran Escaped Harm Six of the victims died in the garage; Frank Gusenberg was taken to a hospital but died three hours later, refusing to name who was responsible. Though the plan had been carefully crafted, one major problem occurred. The man that the lookouts had identified as Moran was really Albert Weinshank. Bugs Moran, the main target for the assassination, was arriving a couple minutes late to the 10:30 a.m.

meeting when he noticed a police car outside the garage. Thinking it was a police raid, Moran stayed away from the building, unknowingly saving his life. The Blonde Alibi The massacre that took seven lives that St. Valentine's Day in 1929 made newspaper headlines across the country. The country was shocked at the brutality of the killings. Police tried desperately to determine who was responsible. Al Capone had an air-tight alibi because he had been called in for questioning by the Dade County solicitor in Miami during the time of the massacre. Machine Gun McGurn had what became called a "blonde alibi" -- he had been at a hotel with his blonde girlfriend from 9 p.m. on February 13 through 3 p.m. on February 14. Fred Burke (one of the gunmen) was arrested by police in March 1931 but was charged with the December 1929 murder of a police officer and sentenced to life in prison for that crime. The Aftermath of the St. Valentine's Day Massacre This was one of the first major crimes that the science of ballistics was used; however no one was ever tried or convicted for the murders of the St.

Valentine's Day Massacre. Though the police never had enough evidence to convict Al Capone, the public knew he was responsible. In addition to making Capone a national celebrity, the St. Valentine's Day Massacre brought Capone to the attention of the federal government. Ultimately, Capone was arrested for tax evasion in 1931 and sent to Alcatraz. With Capone in jail, Machine Gun McGurn was left exposed. On February 15, 1936, nearly seven years to the day of the St. Valentine's Day Massacre, McGurn was gunned down at a bowling alley. Bugs Moran was quite shaken from the entire incident. He stayed in Chicago until the end of Prohibition and then was arrested in 1946 for some small-time bank robberies. He died in prison from lung cancer.

Question: Several associates of which gangster were killed by Al Capone's gang in the 'St. Valentine's Day Massacre' in 1929?
Answer: 'BUGS' MORAN